Spanish Church, Cold Swims, and another Busy Week

      This week has been a bit of a blur.  Days have begun to run together, and I am appreciating the four letters TGIF.  Z has been struggling a bit with being apart from me most of the day, and I have a hard time with it as well.  Thankfully, I have figured out how to get my work duties done before he`s up from his nap most days, so that once he`s awake, he and I have the rest of the day together.  The weekends have become precious because I can be with him more.  

        In class we had a speaker who taught about hearing the voice of God.  It was a good class, and we had lots of time for discussion and prayer throughout the week.  I have realized that I have a passion for intercession, and I look forward to the base-wide intercession mornings on Wed/Friday.  

       Dave and I did not go on local outreach this Friday, which surprised me in some ways, because I had felt that our time in the bar last Friday went so well.  God spoke to my heart throughout the week though, and I realized that I had been excited about that style of evangelism because it worked for someone else, but not because I was truly passionate about it.  That is probably the thing I`ve been struggling with the most: feeling like I`m still waiting to do what I really want to be doing-working with orphans.  I hope that on our big Outreach that we will get to visit lots of orphanages, but it sounds like we`ll be doing a lot of street evangelism... God is going to have to work in my heart because that`s truly not a passion of mine.  

      Team living is going well.  We seem to have ironed out a few of the original challenges... either that or I`ve just started turning a blind eye to them.  Probably that.  My attitude has changed though towards my work duties (cleaning the Lodge where we all live), and on Friday I cleaned up with a joyful heart and felt happy to serve my team in that way.  What a shift from Monday where I basically grumbled the whole time about messy slobs... God has changed my heart and given me love for my teammates, praise the Lord!  

      For church today we attended a Spanish-speaking congregation, which shares a campus with an English-speaking church.  The Sunday school is in English, and is a wonderful program, so I am happy that Z can go to it!  They send home papers to help us re-enforce what he`s learned about, and I am shocked at how much of his lessons he remembers!  He really likes going to Sunday school, and it makes me so proud to see him walk bravely into class without a tear.  We also loved the Spanish service and were amazed at how much we understood!  We really do love Latinos!  

       Well, please keep praying for us to have unity as a team, unity in our marriage (marriage-focused classes this week!), enough time with our son, and guidance and peace about our future... and also, please pray that God will bless us with another child... somehow I thought being busy would take my mind off of the ache in my heart, but in so many ways it just makes my pain worse, because now I`m not even with my one living child.  Please pray for my grieving heart in this matter.  

Dave at work duty, with our team leader Jake in the background

My cutie in the sand pile

Can you guess where we`re going on Outreach???

Z and his bestie Kyla (he`s "helping" her do homework)

Heaven and I during our very cold sunset swim

Just a Few Photos

The scrapbooking room with some of my team people

the living room in the lodge (where our team lives)

the kitchen in the lodge

a rainy day hike to the three crosses with Jeremiah and Kyla (rainbow!)

A view of the three crosses and the base below

Long Days, Short Weeks

    Every day I hit the ground running at 6:06am (I add that 6 minutes to the alarm so I don't feel that it's so close to 5am), and get prepped for the day quietly so as not to wake my adorable little boy sleeping in his playpen.  Dave gets up at the last possible minute, usually while I'm "nattering in his ear" that he needs to help me get Z ready.  After breakfast as a family in the lodge, Z is off with Katie for the morning and Dave and I head to the prayer room and do devotions.  Around that time the sun is just peeking over the top of the ridge behind the Hotel, making me realize how early we have started our day... and just how excited I am for another day at YWAM!
 
    This week we had a teacher named Joe, who spoke about the Father Heart of God.  His teaching opened my eyes to the shame and self-condemnation that I have lived with for the past few years.  One day as Joe was teaching I was so overwhelmed I had to excuse myself because I was crying so hard.  God gently touched my heart and told me that I have not been living in the freedom that He wants to offer me.  I have been living with guilt, and serving Him because He is God and I know He is the only One worth living for... but holding Him and His love at arm's length, because I felt so unworthy of true love from Him.

     We also had teaching on signs and wonders of the Holy Spirit this week which challenged my thinking about healings, speaking in tongues, and other works of the Spirit in our current day.  The Holy Spirit is moving and working at this base, and we have seen healings and people have been given the gift of tongues during the last week.  It's amazing to be somewhere where the Spirit is talked about just as frequently as Jesus and the Father... and we are seeing first hand the life of power that we have been called to walk in!  Praise God!   

    Every Friday we go downtown and do an outreach to the local street people and partyers that are hanging out down there.  Last week I went with the group that was talking to street people and praying for healings and such.  It was a good night, but then this week our teacher talked about how he and his wife had realized that they had no unsaved friends.  He talked about how they had started going to the bar every weekend and making friends, not drinking, just being a light in a dark place.  To date, he and his wife have more that 150unsaved friends and they have had the chance to share the gospel with almost all of them!  A few have even accepted Christ and have asked that they start a church!
 
   I was so inspired by their story of being like Jesus:  a friend of sinners... so this Friday Dave, Stian (another student in our DTS), and I spent the evening in a bar.  We all connected with people, got to share friendship, drinks (Sprite for the win!), and got phone numbers of a few people.  We are planning to go back next Friday and continue the work that God has begun in our new friend's lives.  We carry the Spirit of God within us, and we took that Spirit into the bar- so amazing to be a torch for the light of God!  It was a great night of friendship ministry.

    Every day is hard, and tiring, and stretching, and seems very long... but then I get to the end of the week and I take a deep breath... and suddenly the week seems very short, and I am hungry for more of what God has for us here.  Please keep praying for us!  Next week:  hearing the voice of God... it's gonna be EPIC!  

  

A Busy, but Really Awesome Week

Our first week of classes is already over!  How is this possible?!  Oh, right, it`s possible because we are kept so busy we hardly know what day it is!  haha... Every day we are up early (6am), and have breakfast as a family in the Lodge kitchen.  We meet up with everyone else on the team in the Hotel where our classroom is, and start off the day doing some sort of corporate worship or prayer.  This week we spent an hour praying for a people group in China, and it was literally the most powerful prayer time I`ve ever been part of.  People were praying for God to show them what to pray and God was giving us all words and pictures of things to pray.  It was amazing! 

After coffee break we get into class.  This week was a class on Intimacy with God.  It was life-changing, and has set me on course to knowing God so much deeper.  I realized some things I believed about God were not because God had revealed them to me, but because I`d heard them from other people.  I learned I could ask God who He is, and He will speak to me through the Holy Spirit.  Such an amazing week of teaching... left me craving more! 

Work duties are the second half of the afternoon, after class, and I am in charge of cleaning the lodge.  The Lodge isn`t all that big, and there are 41 of us living here... so it`s a big job.  I work quickly, so I can be ready to play with Zane when he wakes up from nap around 4pm.  He and I go swimming, and meet Dave at supper.  Dave`s work duty is dinner prep... of course!  haha... they weren`t going to let his culiniary abilities go to waste! 

The evening is full of hanging out with the team, doing homework, playing with Zane, and Dave and I even had a date night this week.  I also got to go on the outreach team that went downtown Chico to pray for me.  I was on a team with three others, and we got to pray for a bunch of people.  It was a good night, and one guy we prayed had his knee healed! 

Coming to YWAM has been a huge change, and a big transition, starting months ago as we left Homewood, and continuing to now as we adjust to life with 38 other people in the same house!  God is so good though, and I am happier and more fulfilled than I have been in a very long time, I am growing deeper in my relationship with Christ every day and I am SO HAPPY that we came to YWAM!  Thank you Jesus to calling us here! 

Z, and his friends hanging out in the Lodge (movie night!)

A view of our base from Mushroom Rock (our house is the little white one to the right of the big brown building)

Z and I enjoying the easy part of the hike

Daddy and Z

Everyone carry a kid down the hill!  (with our Canadian friends)

Z and I in the shadow of Mushroom Rock

Daddy and Z playing in our bedroom after our hike

Week 1

A morning walk to the "first bridge"

Correction from our last blog post:  THIS is the lodge where we live.  the other picture is of some guest houses, but I was so frustrated with trying to get the computer to load my photos that I didn`t notice.  haha...

Our team, waiting for orientation class to begin on the first day

The nannies taking a break in the hallway while the little kids are napping.

Dave`s "secret" devotions nook. 

    This first week has passed by very quickly, and we are enjoying spending time with our team and living in the Lodge all together.  We have started working on creative journals, which is required by our program, but is also just a really cool way for us to hang out doing "scrap booking" together as a team, and write down everything that has happened each week.  We have a whole room in the lodge dedicated to our journals, with a big table, bins of supplies, and magazines to cut pictures from. It`s been fun to see even the guys getting into it. 
     Z is doing well with Katie so far, and has gotten used to sleeping in the same room as Dave and I.  Adjustments from our old normal to this new normal are quite extensive, and I know that it`ll be another week or so before we are really settled... but that being said, I am really enjoying living here, and I am so happy that the Lord called us to do this. 
    During our time at Homewood, the Lord had given me a verse to cling to in the difficult days.  I asked Him for a new verse for this new chapter in our life... and had felt discouraged when each day in my devotions I couldn`t find a new verse that I felt He was giving me.  Then, on the first day, I was given a verse, written on a pretty piece of paper, that one of the staff ladies had felt was for me.  It was my verse:  the same verse that God used to encourage me through a difficult time when I was 16, and it was perfect for where I am in life right now.  It was such an affirmation that God has called us here, and that He has a plan in all of this.  I just can`t wait to see what He is going to do in our lives through being at YWAM!!! 

   “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love.
    With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself. I will rebuild you, my virgin Israel.
    You will again be happy
    and dance merrily with your tambourines."   - Jeremiah 31:3-4

Pictures of Our New Home

Z and Dave on the bed (bunkbeds!)

bathroom!!!!  yay!!!

bedroom (from the other side)

Bedroom (from doorway)

living room on the main floor (we`re on the second floor)

view from our bedroom window (three crosses hike in the distance)

driveway, ring of flags, and our big white house in background

California!!!

Yesterday morning we crossed the border into the States.  We spent a lovely day with my Grandma, going for lunch, hanging out at her house and having fried chicken and potato salad for dinner (it was Labor Day after all!).  Dave and Zane took naps in the afternoon, or at least attempted to... and after supper we were on our way! 
 
We took the I-5 all the way to California, and only stopped about three times for gas and, of course, Starbucks.  Our nanny, Katie, was with us as well, all jammed into our little Toyota.  We all arrived safe and sound at the YWAM base around 7am... tired, smelly, and feeling a bit daunted by having to be friendly and get organized all on about 1 hour of sleep between the three of us adults.  We got settled into our new bedroom (which even has it`s own bathroom!  we weren`t expecting that!), and after a long nap we all felt ready for this new chapter of our life. 

We went swimming, called our parents to tell them we were alive, welcomed another family into the dorms and helped them bring their stuff inside, and had a sandwhich dinner with some of the base staff.  All in all, a tiring day... but leaves us feeling optimistic about the next six months with our new YWAM team!

Some highlights of the day:
        -  Ariving at the YWAM base and realizing that after dreaming about doing a DTS since I was 15... I`m finally here!!!
       -  The welcome packets in our room:  They were little boxes full of snacks, bottles of water, encouraging notes, and some toy frogs for Zane!  Such wonderful hospitality.
       -  Finding the Chico country music station!!!  Yeah!!!